Foundation of new facility completed

The ground was broken more than two months ago on the site of the Kelvington Health Care Facility, and project manager Ron Diller says construction is right on target.

Part of the foundation of the new health-care facility.

Diller, of RMD Project Management, has 20 years experience supervising project builds. Contracted by Kelsey Trail Health Region (KTHR) to be its on-site agent for the construction of the new facility, it is his job to make sure the building is built properly and keep construction on schedule.

“I’ve rented a home in Kelvington and will be here, on-site, for the next 30 months until the project is complete,” Diller said. HLM, a division of Humboldt Lumber Mart, has been hired to construct the new facility.

“I really give the guys credit,” he said. “We have 12 to 14 workers on-site who have been outside in this cold, cold weather for eight to 10 hours each day. Even in this cold weather, they have only been taking their regular coffee and lunch breaks.”

One might wonder if construction, particularly the foundational supports, can continue in the cold weather. It can.

“We have two furnaces outside blowing hot air into the taped areas where the concrete is curing,” Diller explained. “When the guys are working in those areas, they strip down to their T-shirts, so it is very warm.”

One of the outdoor furnaces used to heat the structures in place around the concrete foundations.

The concrete for the basement has already been poured, as has the concrete foundation, including the grade beams for the crawl space. The next phase of construction will see some structural steel going up and the core flooring put into place.

“Core flooring is pre-cast concrete flooring,” Diller said. “The floor is brought in, in slabs — two slabs per semi — and unloaded on-site by a big crane. It will take five days to get the floor in place and we expect that to happen the last week of January.”

Core flooring is used, he added, to ensure that the floor is level. Once the slabs are down, in-floor heating will be placed and concrete poured over it. Because of the weight of the files, the floor in the medical records portion of the building will be twice as thick as that in the rest of the building. The flooring and steel structures work should be completed by mid February.

The next phase will be the framing of the building by Jackpine Framing out of Carrot River.

When asked why builders, electricians or plumbing companies from Kelvington were not hired as subcontractors, Diller explained that a project of this size requires a company that is bonded and has the manpower and experience to complete the project within the allotted time frame.

“We have hired local workers during our building phase and we will be using some of the local trades as construction continues,” Diller said. “We are very happy that we have been able to source our manpower from within the Kelsey Trail Health Region.”

The News plans to tour the site again in March when, Diller expects, there should be a roof over our heads.

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